Blogs

Recessions come and go in cycles and so do the reactions to those recessions.

When The Internet really took off, plenty of us wondered how it would really affect us in the day jobs.

A couple of years ago as the Green Deal really got going - in terms of Government and industry hopes of course, rather than actual bookings and signed deals, there was a report from the University of Loughborough which suggested that the Government's flagship energy policy might actually be responsible for killing people through overheated…

I have harped on here before about how rubbish some companies can be when it comes to customer service. And now I have a new bug bear. It is the crimes against common sense that are committed every day under the guise of the Data Protection Act. The way that some customer service departments hide…

What goes around comes around. We talk a lot about economics being a cycle, of recessions coming every seven to 10 years and sometimes things happen that drive that thought home. So it is with the news that Forterra (ex Hanson Building Products) is to mothball two of the brick factories it re-opened only a…

In the past two weeks there has been a flurry of activity about housing; kicked off by criticism of Decent Homes and overall Government performance on housing. Labour was given a ticking off for missing its targets and there was a rush to put the boot in.

As merchants who are selling cement and other cement-containing materials, you may have noticed cement bags have a use by date printed on them but might not be aware of its significance. This is in effect a 'shelf life' for cement and has a big impact on stock control both for your suppliers and your…

As construction activity picks up after a (rather too long!) slumber through the recession, the opportunities for skilled construction works are expanding rapidly. The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) estimates that over 180,000 new jobs will be created in the next 5 years, perhaps a greater rate of job creation than in any other sector.

This summer has not been exactly tropical, far from it, but inevitably the temperature will begin to drop over the next weeks and months and we enter the autumn/winter season (how depressing!) It is however, probably time look at what the industry will be needing from its suppliers over the winter months.

Listening to Ed Davey MP speak on the Green Deal at Ecobuild on Tuesday (full speech here) I did agree with his sentiments - it will be a long term transformation.. the industry does have to work together to make it work.